ABCNews: Scientists manipulate bacteria to take pictures of themselves

"By PAUL ELIAS AP Biotechnology Writer
The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO Nov 23, 2005 — The notorious E. coli bug made its film debut Wednesday. That's when researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Texas announced in the journal Nature that they had created photographs of themselves by programming the bacteria best known for outbreaks of food poisoning to make pictures in much the same way Kodak film produces images.

It's the latest advance in "synthetic biology," a disputed research movement launched largely by engineers and chemists bent on genetically manipulating microscopic bugs into acting like tiny machines, creating new, powerful and inexpensive ways to make drugs, plastics and even alternatives to fossil fuel.

The field seeks to go beyond traditional genetic engineering feats where a single gene is spliced into bacteria and other cells to manufacture drugs. Synthetic biologists are trying to create complex systems that function as logically and reliably as computers.

Mainstream biologists, however, scoff that biology life itself is too unpredictable and prone to genetic mutation to understand, let alone tame and turn into miniature factories.

Bioethicists, meanwhile, fret that synthetic biologists are attempting to create new living creatures and are inventing technology that can readily be used by terrorists.

Still, a growing number of engineers are jumping into the nascent field, whose chief goals include breaking down microbes and other living things into smaller components and reassembling those parts into useful machines.

"There is kind of a hacker culture behind all of this," said Chris Voigt, a University of California, San Francisco researcher who, at 29, was the senior author on the bacteria-as-film paper in Nature.

Voigt and colleagues took from algae light-sensitive genes that emit black compounds and spliced them into a batch of E. coli bacteria. The organisms were then spread on a petri dish that resembles a cookie sheet and placed in an incubator. A high-powered projector cast photographic images of the researchers through a hole on top of the incubator, exposing some of the bacteria to light.

The result: Ghostly images like traditional black-and-white photographs of the researchers responsible for the invention, at a resolution Voigt said was about 100 megapixels, or 10 times sharper than high-end printers.

The work, though, isn't intended for commercial markets.

"They aren't going to put Kodak out of business any time soon," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Drew Endy, a leading synthetic biologist.

Instead, the creation will be used as a sensor to start and stop more complex genetic engineering experiments. The idea is to create a genetically engineered cell that lays dormant until a laser is shined on it, prompting it into action.

Such an accomplishment would add to the growing success of a field that is making strides around the world, in such projects as:

Scientists in Israel made the world's smallest computer by engineering DNA to carry out mathematical functions.

J. Craig Venter, the entrepreneurial scientist who mapped the human genome and launched the Rockville, Md.-based research institute named after himself, is attempting to create novel organisms that can produce alternative fuels.

With a $42.6 million grant that originated at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Berkeley researchers are engineering the E. coli bug with genes from the wormwood plant and yeast to create a new malaria drug.

Even as they wrestle with scientific hurdles like controlling genetic mutations, thorny ethical issues are cropping up.

It's cheap and easy to buy individual genes online. They cost about $1 each, down from the $18 apiece charged just a few years ago. Researchers last year created a synthetic polio virus by simply stitching together these mail-order genes.

National security experts and even synthetic biologists themselves are concerned that rogue scientists could create new biological weapons like deadly viruses that lack natural foes. They also worry about innocent mistakes: organisms that could potentially create havoc if allowed to reproduce outside the lab.

Researchers are casting about for ways to self-police the field before it really takes off. Leaders in the field have organized a second national conference to grapple with these issues this coming May and the Arthur P. Sloan Foundation in June handed out a $570,000 grant to study the social implications of the new field.

"This is powerful work and we live in an age that many tools and technologies can be turned into weaponry," said Laurie Zoloth, a bioethicist at Northwestern University. "You always have the problem of dual-use in every new technology. Steel can be used to make sewing needles or spears." "

Self police before someone unethical uses it to hurt people.

Despite no withdrawal plans anytime soon, withdrawal plans are being submitted

The Washington Post reports:

"3 Brigades May Be Cut in Iraq Early in 2006
Some U.S. Troops Would Stay 'On Call' in Kuwait

By Bradley Graham and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 23, 2005; Page A01

Barring any major surprises in Iraq, the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat brigades, from 18 now, but to keep at least one brigade "on call" in Kuwait in case more troops are needed quickly, several senior military officers said.

Pentagon authorities also have set a series of "decision points" during 2006 to consider further force cuts that, under a "moderately optimistic" scenario, would drop the total number of troops from more than 150,000 now to fewer than 100,000, including 10 combat brigades, by the end of the year, the officers said.

Despite an intensified congressional debate about a withdrawal timetable after last week's call by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) for a quick pullout, administration officials say that military and political factors heavily constrain how fast U.S. forces should leave. They cite a continuing need to assist Iraq's fledgling security forces, ensure establishment of a permanent government, suppress the insurgency and reduce the potential for civil war.

U.S. military commanders, too, continue to favor a gradual, phased reduction, saying that too rapid a departure would sacrifice strategic gains made over the past 30 months and provide a propaganda windfall to insurgents.

Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the senior tactical commander in Iraq, indicated to reporters at the Pentagon yesterday that his staff had looked at shrinking U.S. force levels more quickly. But he made his opposition to such a move clear.

"A precipitous pullout, I believe, would be destabilizing," Vines said from Baghdad.

Another senior general likened an accelerated withdrawal to "taking the training wheels off of a bike too early," warning that a sudden removal of all U.S. troops would risk the collapse of Iraq's fledgling security forces. He and several other officers privy to the planning for force reductions said the process has not been affected by the mounting political pressure in the United States and among some Iraqi leaders for U.S. troops to leave.

The current number of U.S. forces in Iraq represents an increase of more than 15,000 troops over a base level this year of about 138,000, including 17 combat brigades. The equivalent of another brigade's worth of combat power was added this fall to bolster security for the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum and the coming Dec. 15 vote on a new national government.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld spoke over the weekend of plans to bring the force level back down to 138,000 after the elections, effectively removing the extra brigade equivalent added for the election period.

In addition, officers said, two combat brigades that had been slated to move into Iraq to replace units coming out are now expected to be held back. One of those units -- a brigade of the 1st Armored Division based in Germany -- will probably be positioned in Kuwait. The other unit -- a brigade of the 1st Infantry Division -- will probably remain at its home base of Fort Riley, Kan., the officers said.

The plan to keep at least one brigade in Kuwait represents what one senior officer called a "hybrid option." It is intended to hedge against events in Iraq deteriorating once U.S. force levels begin to drop, the officer said, adding that the Pentagon probably will place troops on alert elsewhere as well.

"These would be middle measures that would allow for a mitigation of the risks of reducing forces in Iraq and make the decisions more palatable," the officer said.

Murtha, in his call for withdrawal last week, also suggested retaining a quick-reaction force in the region as well as Marines within a short sailing time away. Similarly, in an article published by the Center for American Progress last month, Lawrence J. Korb and Brian Katulis, two defense specialists, outlined a plan for redeploying some U.S. forces from Iraq to Kuwait and offshore in the Persian Gulf.

One general involved in the planning said there is some concern about avoiding a perception that the United States, by shifting forces to Kuwait that were intended for Iraq, is beginning a new military buildup in the region.

We prefer to describe it as shifting troops forward to the region, not building up a force on the border with Iraq," the general said.

All the officers who spoke about the troop plans stressed that final decisions will come only after the Dec. 15 vote. But they described the moves as likely, assuming no major turn for the worse in Iraq. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to discuss the plans. They also were unable to provide an exact figure for how many troops would remain in Iraq after the initial reductions take effect next year.

Military officers and defense officials have frequently described the challenge of deciding how many forces to keep in Iraq as a balancing act between trying to provide security and avoiding the appearance of an occupation force that may fuel insurgent violence and engender Iraqi dependence on U.S. assistance.

"The tension that the commanders feel between heavy presence and lower footprint is something they're measuring all the time," Lawrence T. Di Rita, the Pentagon's primary spokesman, said yesterday.

To help gauge the particular impact that growth of Iraq's security forces might have on the pace of a U.S. drawdown, military planners in Baghdad have devised a simple formula -- what one general called a "rough rule of thumb."

The formula estimates that for every three Iraqi battalions and one Iraqi brigade headquarters achieving a readiness rating of level two, a U.S. battalion can be dropped. A level two rating, on a scale of one to four, indicates that a unit is able to take the lead in operations but still requires some U.S. military support.

The withdrawal formula is a planning tool, several officers stressed, not a definitive predictor of how many U.S. forces are likely to leave, or when.

The Iraqi military has experienced rapid growth in combat units this year, but it continues to suffer from much slower development of transportation, engineering and other critical support elements. That will require U.S. forces to provide backup for months, U.S. officers said.

There are also concerns about Iraq's new police force and the presence of militias. Last week, U.S. troops discovered a secret Interior Ministry facility holding more than 170 detainees, many of whom said they had been treated badly. It had been run by members of the Badr Brigade, a Shiite militia loyal to Iraq's largest political faction.

"What it illustrates is that we have failed to form a unified police force," said a U.S. official involved in Iraq policy. "There are now militias all over Iraq that operate freely and as an arm of political coercion."

Iraq's political timetable also will require a substantial U.S. presence next year, officials say. After the Dec. 15 election, Iraqis will need time to form a new government -- that took more than three months after January's vote. The new parliament is then to begin a four-month process of amending the constitution approved in October. Iraqis will then vote in another constitutional referendum.

"The reconciliation process will span a long period of time," said a White House official. "They have significant political benchmarks for the next six months or longer, and we anticipate they'll want us to play an important role in facilitation." "

Reuters reports:

"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States may not need the number of troops it has in Iraq "all that much longer," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said amid reports the Pentagon may pull back three combat brigades.

With political pressure building on U.S. President George W. Bush to shift course in Iraq, U.S. officials are trying to reassure Americans that sufficient progress is being made in training Iraqi forces to possibly permit some U.S. troops to leave.

"I suspect that American forces are not going to be needed in the numbers that they're there for all that much longer, because Iraqis are continuing to make progress in function, not just in numbers, but in their capabilities to do certain functions," Rice told CNN on Tuesday.

She said "the number of coalition forces is clearly going to come down because Iraqis are making it possible now to do those functions themselves."

Rice's comments come after a bitter debate on Capitol Hill about Bush's Iraq policy, including a demand by one of the most hawkish members of the U.S. Congress, Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, that U.S. forces withdraw immediately.

The Washington Post said on Wednesday that barring any major surprises in Iraq, the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat brigades, from 18 now, but to keep at least one brigade "on call" in Kuwait in case more troops are needed quickly.

Quoting several senior military officers, the Post said Pentagon authorities also have set a series of "decision points" during 2006 to consider further force cuts that, under a "moderately optimistic" scenario, would drop the total number of troops to fewer than 100,000 from more than 150,000 now, including 10 combat brigades, by the end of the year.

A U.S. Army brigade has between 3,000 and 5,000 soldiers.

Bush has consistently said that U.S. forces would stand down when Iraqi forces stand up. He hinted at the possibility of a troop drawdown on Sunday in Beijing.

"As the Iraqi security forces gain strength and experience we can lessen our troop presence in the country without losing our capability to effectively defeat the terrorists," Bush told reporters.

Bush is under pressure to change course in Iraq after the deaths of more than 2,000 Americans there and an unending train of suicide bombings

But White House officials said he was not shifting his strategy, that any troop reductions would be based on conditions on the ground and the ability of Iraqi forces to defend themselves.

"A precipitous pullout, I believe, would be destabilizing," Lt. Gen. John Vines, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters in a teleconference on Tuesday. He refused to set any timetable.

Vines said any recommendation from U.S. commanders in Iraq to begin withdrawing forces would be made based on the security situation and not on political considerations."

Ok. Totally confused?

We'll see what happens.

CNN: Rumsfeld given Iraq withdrawal plan

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The top U.S. commander in Iraq has submitted a plan to the Pentagon for withdrawing troops in Iraq, according to a senior defense official.

Gen. George Casey submitted the plan to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It includes numerous options and recommends that brigades -- usually made up of about 2,000 soldiers each -- begin pulling out of Iraq early next year.

The proposal comes as tension grows in both Washington and Baghdad following a call by a senior House Democrat to bring U.S. troops home and the deaths of scores of people by suicide bombers in two Iraqi cities.

House Republicans were looking for a showdown Friday after Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and well-respected Vietnam veteran, presented a resolution that would force the president to withdraw the nearly 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq "at the earliest predictable date." (Watch Murtha urge legislators to sign off on pulling out troops -- 1:37)

Murtha on Thursday called the administration's management of the conflict "a flawed policy wrapped in illusion" that is "uniting the enemy against us."

"It's time to bring the troops home," he said.

Republicans were looking to lock horns with Democrats after Murtha's remarks.

Rather than distancing themselves from Friday's resolution, House majority leader Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, welcomed a debate and vote, forcing Democrats to stand alongside Murtha or go on record against the withdrawal. (Read about the House showdown)

Meanwhile, at least 90 people were killed in two suicide bombings in Iraq, according to hospital officials. The U.S. military put the casualties at 150, without giving a breakdown. (Full story)

The deadliest of the attacks took place in Khanaqin, a Shiite-Kurdish town about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of Baquba. Two suicide bombers detonated bombs near or inside Shiite Muslim mosques, destroying both of the structures, Iraqi and U.S. authorities said.

Scores of people were killed.

The attacks came during midday prayer services, when the mosques were full of worshippers, many of them children, the Khanaqin mayor said.

Also Friday, two suicide car bombings in Baghdad killed at least six people near a hotel, police said. (Watch security camera video of suicide car bomb -- :30)

The hotel is near the Iraqi Interior Ministry compound, where about 170 detainees were found last weekend, some with signs of torture, according to Iraqi officials. There were no reports of damage to the compound, and the U.S. military said the hotel was the target of the attack.

Rumsfeld has yet to sign Casey's withdrawal plan but, the senior defense official said, implementation of the plan, if approved, would start after the December 15 Iraqi elections so as not to discourage voters from going to the polls.

The plan, which would withdraw a limited amount of troops during 2006, requires that a host of milestones be reached before troops are withdrawn.

Top Pentagon officials have repeatedly discussed some of those milestones: Iraqi troops must demonstrate that they can handle security without U.S. help; the country's political process must be strong; and reconstruction and economic conditions must show signs of stability.

CNN's Dana Bash, Arwa Damon, Enes Dulami and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.
"

ABCNews:The House rejects immediate withdrawal from Iraq

"By LIZ SIDOTI Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON Nov 18, 2005 — The House on Friday overwhelmingly rejected calls for an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq, a vote engineered by the Republicans that was intended to fail. Democrats derided the vote as a political stunt.

"Our troops have become the enemy. We need to change direction in Iraq," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a Democratic hawk whose call a day earlier for pulling out troops sparked a nasty, personal debate over the war.

The House voted 403-3 to reject a nonbinding resolution calling for an immediate troop withdrawal.

"We want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will not retreat," Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said as the GOP leadership pushed the issue to a vote over the protest of Democrats.

It was the second time in less than a week that President Bush's Iraq policy stirred heated debate in Congress. On Tuesday, the Senate defeated a Democratic push for Bush to lay out a timetable for withdrawal.

Murtha, a 73-year-old Marine veteran decorated for combat service in Vietnam, issued his call for a troop withdrawal at a news conference on Thursday. In little more than 24 hours, Hastert and Republicans decided to put the question to the House.

Democrats said it was a political stunt and quickly decided to vote against it in an attempt to drain it of significance.

"A disgrace," declared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "The rankest of politics and the absence of any sense of shame," added Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat.

Republicans hoped to place Democrats in an unappealing position either supporting a withdrawal that critics said would be precipitous or opposing it and angering voters who want an end to the conflict. They also hoped the vote could restore GOP momentum on an issue the war that has seen plummeting public support in recent weeks.

Democrats claimed Republicans were changing the meaning of Murtha's withdrawal proposal. He has said a smooth withdrawal would take six months...."

CNN: jobseeker's journal. "Lessons my 6yr old taught me"

"From CareerBuilder.com


Wednesday, November 16, 2005; Posted: 8:13 a.m. EST (13:13 GMT)

Editor's Note: CNN.com has a business partnership with CareerBuilder.com, which serves as the exclusive provider of job listings and services to CNN.com.
The following is the second in a series of journal entries from a member of the CareerBuilder.com community about losing a job and searching for a new one. At his request, his real name has been withheld so that he can relay his experiences with his former company and potential employers with impunity.

"Joe" (his nom de blog) is 45 years old and was let go from a management position at a major consumer products company. He relocated with his family to take the job a little more than a year ago. He has agreed to write an online diary about his experience.

I read once that most companies fire people on Tuesday mornings. That way the exiled workers have time to pull themselves together before going home to their families or, even worse, their empty apartment. It also gives them three days to begin their job search rather than sit and stew over a weekend.

I spent my Tuesday afternoon at the library pulling together a list of friends and contacts whom I could call to discuss my future plans. That evening I took my son, Jacob, to his indoor soccer league, which was finishing up its season.

Being temperamentally unsuited to coach 6-year-olds at anything, I sat in the stands and watched. Turnout was low, and they had to mix up teams. The volunteer coach designated two captains and had them choose sides.

I watched in agony as my son was one of the last picked. I felt an abject failure, not only as a professional but also as a role model for my child.

Even though there were barely enough kids to play, Jacob began the game on the sidelines. "Rejected like his father," I thought.

By the third quarter, I began to feel immense anger. "If they think he stinks so badly, let's leave," I fumed.

I began to put on my coat and storm down the bleachers when suddenly Jacob was put in as goalie.

A huge grin spread over his face as he skipped out onto the court. He was in the game.

I watched nervously as he danced about in the goal cheering as his team scored and watching tensely as the ball approached his goal. The other team's "captain" kicked the ball toward the goal, and Jacob jumped out and retrieved it. His teammates and their parents cheered.

Jacob began to hop up and down, pumping his spindly arms in the air. He was so elated he didn't see the next shot coming. It landed in the net for a goal.

My moment of euphoria ended, and thankfully, soon after, so did the game. The teams did their congratulatory hand slaps. As we rode home, I asked him if he had a good time. "Oh yes, it was awesome," he chirped.

That's when I realized I'd found my job-hunt mentor.

Jacob certainly isn't a star, but he always plays to please himself and have fun. No matter how many goals he lets by, no matter how many shots he misses, no matter how many hyper-competitive parents grumble at the coach to take Jacob out of the game, he comes back for more -- with an unwavering conviction that eventually he'll make it.

And it's not just on the soccer field. Who but an intractable optimist would keep asking to watch "Finding Nemo" after being refused 1,000 times? If he could keep getting up and starting over, so could I.

"How was your day, Dad?" he asked. "Not, so great," I answered. "But things will get better soon."

Eventually I'd tell him what had happened. But I wasn't going to spoil our moment. At least I knew I wouldn't be a loser in his eyes. (At least not for now -- it will be a couple of more years before he's a teenager.)"

Yup. How many millions of Americans are in this situation?

MSNBC: The Pentagon issues manual on the handling of detainees

"WASHINGTON - Thrown on the defensive after the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon has issued a broad new directive mandating that detainees be treated humanely and has banned the use of dogs to intimidate or harass suspects.

The directive pulls together for the first time all the Defense Department’s existing policies and memos covering the interrogation of detainees captured in the war against terrorism. It comes as Congress is considering a ban on inhumane treatment of U.S. prisoners and as Democrats in the House and Senate push for the creation of a commission to investigate the treatment of foreign prisoners.

On Tuesday, the Senate voted 55-43, largely along party lines, against legislation that would create a commission modeled after the one that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Democrats contend that investigations into abuse allegations by the Pentagon have been incomplete.

“There are major gaps in the investigations held so far,” said Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who sponsored the legislation. “We cannot sweep these gaps under the rug.”

But Republicans called the commission unnecessary and they all voted against the measure. Ben Nelson of Nebraska was the only Democrat who sided with them.

Addressing unacceptable techniques Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said the issues have been addressed in congressional hearings and Pentagon investigations. He highlighted the new Pentagon directive as evidence that defense officials were addressing the problems.

While the policy maps out broad requirements for humane treatment and for reporting violations, it is just the first step in the development of a new Army manual that would detail more precisely which interrogation techniques are acceptable and which are not.

The directive, which was first reported Tuesday by The New York Times, says “acts of physical or mental torture are prohibited” and directs that any violations be reported, investigated and punished when appropriate.

But the only specific prohibition in the directive says that dogs used by any government agency “shall not be used as part of an interrogation approach or to harass, intimidate threaten or coerce a detainee for interrogation purposes.”

Investigations into detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib facility in Iraq found that unmuzzled dogs were used to intimidate inmates.

The new policy, a product of about 11 months work, governs the interrogation of any detainee under Defense Department control. It leaves open the possibility that prisoners in department facilities, such as Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib, could at times be considered under the control of another agency — such as the Central Intelligence Agency — and therefore would not be subject to the
directive’s policies.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the new directive is a recognition that interrogations play a prominent and crucial role in the war on terror.

“Intelligence is critical to this conflict, probably more so than in any other conflict this nation has been engaged in,” said Whitman. “We know that we learn from our enemies that we have captured information that thwarts attacks and saves lives.”

Degrading, inhuman treatment to be banned The Pentagon also expects to release another policy soon on the broader treatment of detainees, including requirements for holding, transferring and releasing them. That would address an aspect of Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s proposed amendment, which would ban degrading and inhuman treatment of prisoners.

The Army manual is expected to be released soon, however, it is likely to speak in somewhat general terms. The most specific guidelines on interrogation techniques — for example, how long detainees can be forced to sit or stand in certain positions or exactly how hot or cold their holding areas can be — will be included in a classified document.

Administration officials have balked at proposals that expressly outline accepted and prohibited methods of interrogation, saying they don’t want America’s enemies to know the exact limits. They argue that such knowledge would allow enemy combatants to train to endure those specific techniques.

In a related matter, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is considering proposing legislation that would eliminate habeas corpus rights for detainees captured in the war on terrorism.

Detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, jail have turned to U.S. courts to file habeas corpus lawsuits challenging their detentions. Graham’s proposal, which he may try to attach to a defense bill the Senate is considering, would bar them from doing so.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other rights groups are urging senators to oppose the proposal."

Reuters: US using white phosphorus on Falluja

"By Phil Stewart
ROME (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Iraq have used incendiary white phosphorus against civilians and a firebomb similar to napalm against military targets, Italian state-run broadcaster RAI reported on Tuesday.

A RAI documentary showed images of bodies recovered after a November 2004 offensive by U.S. troops on the town of Falluja, which it said proved the use of white phosphorus against men, women and children who were burned to the bone.

"I do know that white phosphorus was used," said Jeff Englehart in the RAI documentary, which identified him as a former soldier in the U.S. 1st Infantry Division in Iraq.

The U.S. military says white phosphorus is a conventional weapon and says it does not use any chemical arms.

"Burned bodies. Burned children and burned women," said Englehart, who RAI said had taken part in the Falluja offensive. "White phosphorus kills indiscriminately."

A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said he did not recall white phosphorus being used in Falluja. "I do not recall the use of white phosphorus during the offensive operations in Falluja in the fall of 2004," Lieutenant Colonel Steven Boylan said.

An incendiary device, white phosphorus is used by the military to conceal troop movements with smoke, mark targets or light up combat areas. The use of incendiary weapons against civilians has been banned by the Geneva Convention since 1980.

The United States did not sign the relevant protocol to the convention, a U.N. official in New York said.

The Falluja offensive aimed to crush followers of al Qaeda's Iraq leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said to have linked up with local insurgents in the Sunni Arab city west of Baghdad.

Some Western newspapers reported at the time that white phosporus had been used during the offensive.

In the documentary called "Falluja: The Hidden Massacre", RAI also said U.S. forces used the Mark 77 firebomb, a weapon similar to napalm, on military targets in Iraq in 2003"

This is not good. Do we really need this kind of weapon? Won't it galvanize the opposition even more? We certainly can't win hearts and minds with this.

Yahoo!New/Christian Science Monitor:the Qalat minesweeper

"By Scott Baldauf, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Mon Nov 7, 3:00 AM ET



QALAT, AFGHANISTAN - The latest thing to come out of the motor pool here at Qalat Forward Operating Base isn't pretty, and it isn't all that easy to steer. But it might just save some lives.

It's a minesweeper that rides out front of a Humvee, designed to detect land mines or roadside bombs by setting them off.

"Hopefully, it will blow up the mines and save the lives of the men inside the Humvee," says Sgt. Byron Begay, a motor pool mechanic from Superior, Ariz.

The minesweeper, due to make its battlefield debut this month, has a distinctly Frankensteinish look to it - iron welded to iron, a steering column, and a Humvee-length space of nothingness, where an exploding roadside bomb will be unable to do harm. It's the type of battlefield ingenuity that the Pentagon could draw upon as it tasks a high-level general to develop countermeasures to roadside bombs, or improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The Qalat minesweeper was cobbled together from parts scavenged from broken-down
Humvees. And that, unfortunately, is something the Army has a lot of these days.

IEDs have become the weapon of choice for Taliban and other insurgents. In Zabul Province alone, the area of operation for the 2nd Regiment of the 503rd Airborne Infantry - part of the storied 173rd Airborne division - some 41 IEDs have been used against US or Afghan troops in the past six months.

Half of these IEDs were discovered before they detonated. The rest exploded near coalition vehicles, killing five servicemen, injuring dozens of others, and rendering dozens of vehicles inoperable.

The deadliest attack came Aug. 21, when four US Army servicemen from Battle Company of the 2/503rd hit a pressure plate mine - the most common type of mine here, which is triggered by a vehicle's weight - while riding in an "up-armored" Humvee.

It was then that motor pool Chief Thomas Waltman, of Hot Springs, Colo., came up with the idea of creating a minesweeper that could ride out front of the lead Humvee in a convoy.

"Once we get the materials, we can make as many as we want," says Staff Sgt. Ilon Crittenden, of Buffalo, N.Y. Parts are generally hard to come by, so the motor pool makes do by stripping damaged Humvees.

The hardest nut to crack was how to steer the minesweeper. Pushing a trailer out front of a car requires a separate, passenger-side steering system.

On their first test drives, motor pool mechanics found that when the driver of the Humvee and the driver of the minesweeper both steered at the same time, the two vehicles began to move sideways, like a crab. Now, they have learned to steer the trailer first, and the Humvee second. Once the Humvee has moved onto blacktop road, where land mines cannot be placed, the trailer can be disconnected and put behind the Humvee.

The minesweeper may help slow a trend in adding heavy armor to Humvees. In recent years, Army motor pools have been customizing lightly-armored Humvees, adding inch-thick panels of fiberglass to door panels and fenders to protect against shrapnel and small arms fire. On paper, this makes sense, but on the battlefield, this added weight can be dangerous.

"We want to be careful here; the Humvee was not designed to be a tank," says Capt. Thomas Anderson, a military spokesman in Qalat. "They were designed to be maneuverable. You can't sacrifice that in this terrain. On long-range missions, you cross a lot of rivers, and the last thing you want is to get stuck in a riverbed or a snowbank." "

Get the kinks out and put that baby to work.

REUTERS: Fighting IEDs

"By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Having failed so far to blunt the deadliest threat posed by Iraq's insurgency, the Pentagon said on Thursday it planned to expand its effort to find better ways to defend against the roadside bombs used by rebels to kill and maim U.S. troops.

The Pentagon is considering putting a more senior officer in charge of a task force set up last year to deal with the so-called improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, often planted by insurgents on roads to attack U.S. vehicles, officials said. The Pentagon also intends to add more people to the effort.

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Conway, director of operations for the military's Joint Staff, told a briefing that instead of the one-star Army general who heads the group, the Pentagon may put a three-star officer with more clout in charge.

"It's the only tool the enemy really has left in order to be able to take us on and cause casualties," Conway said of the IEDs. "And when we defeat that one method, it's over."

IEDs are the leading cause of death and injury for U.S. troops in Iraq. The Pentagon said more than half of all U.S. casualties stem from these homemade bombs, often buried along a roadside or hidden inside debris or even animal carcasses and usually detonated by remote control or with a timer device.

Insurgents have vexed U.S. forces with their ability to adapt technologies and to build increasingly powerful devices. For example, in one of the rebels' deadliest attacks on U.S. forces, 14 Marines died on August 3 south of Haditha in western Iraq when their Amphibious Assault Vehicle was blown up with a roadside bomb fashioned from three land mines.

October was the fourth deadliest month of the war for U.S. forces, with 96 troops killed. Of those, at least 57 were killed by IEDs. In addition, blast wounds from IEDs have been responsible for many of limb amputations for troops who survived attacks.

About 2,030 U.S. troops have been killed since the war began in March 2003, with nearly 15,500 more wounded.

The U.S. Army first created a task force to counter the IED threat in October 2003 in the early months of the insurgency that rose up after the U.S.-led invasion ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

At the request of Gen. John Abizaid, top U.S. commander in the region, the Pentagon in July 2004 formed an IED task force encompassing all military branches. It is headed by Army Brig. Gen. Joseph Votel and has a staff of about 140. Officials did not state how many more people would be assigned to the task force.

Some military officers have privately expressed frustration that the IED threat has not been better quelled

"There's never going to be a quick fix. There's no silver bullet," said a defense official who asked not to be named. "There's never going to be a single piece of technology that takes care of the IED problem when we face an adaptive enemy who looks at what he does and what works and looks at what we do in response and adjusts accordingly."

The U.S. military has fielded jamming devices to counter radio-controlled IEDs and a small number of bomb-detecting robots have been deployed, officials said. The officials said the percentage of effective IED attacks has fallen, but the number of attacks has risen, thus increasing the number of U.S. casualties.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the IED task force has almost $1.5 billion in funding this year alone. Di Rita said it also would be appropriate to expand the reach of the task force into other parts of the U.S. government that might be able to supply answers."

We are hopeful answers come soon.

REUTERS: Army adapts to the war of the flea

"By Bernd Debusmann
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In small steps and without fanfare, the U.S. Army is adapting its training to "the war of the flea," the type of hit-and-run insurgency that is gripping Iraq, where more than 2,000 American military personnel have been killed.

Counterinsurgency training, military experts say, largely vanished from the curriculum of Army schools after the Vietnam War. It began a slow comeback after the Iraq war, which opened with a massive ground and air assault, turned into a protracted conflict of ambushes, bombings and hit-and-run attacks.

"Now, there is counterinsurgency (instruction) at every level, from the warrior leader course (for front-line sergeants) through to the war college," said Brig. Gen. Volney Warner, deputy commandant of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

A revised field manual on counterinsurgency, compiled jointly by the Army and the U.S. Marine Corps, is due to be issued next spring, Warner said in an interview. From the beginning of next year, the syllabus at the Command and General Staff College will include 18 hours on the theory of counterinsurgency.

One of the books that will be required reading at the college -- an essential career step for all officers who want to rise above the rank of major -- is a textbook by David Galula which was first published in 1964.

It deals with the central dilemma facing counterinsurgency forces: To break an insurgency you need intelligence about the insurgents from the population. But the population will not talk to counterinsurgency forces unless it feels safe from retribution from the insurgents. It does not feel safe as long as insurgents are active.

In Iraq, assassinations and bomb attacks have killed thousands of people seen as sympathetic to the Americans or working with the government. The Iraqi civilian death toll has topped 50 a day on average for many months.

Crime and lawlessness have added to the perception, reflected in Iraqi opinion polls, that U.S. forces are providing little or no security to Iraqis -- the key condition for winning the hearts and minds of the population.

Galula's book first appeared at about the same time as another treatise on counterinsurgency that is now high on contemporary military reading lists because of Iraq, "War of the Flea" by Robert Taber.

Taber likened guerrillas to fleas and conventional armies to dogs. The dog is always at a disadvantage against the flea -- he has "too much to defend, too small, ubiquitous and agile an enemy to come to grips with. If the war continues long enough ... the dog succumbs to exhaustion and anemia without ever having found anything on which to close its jaws or to rake with its claws."

The U.S. approach reflects a distinct shift of policy. President George W. Bush made aversion to "nation building", the process under way in Iraq, a plank in his election campaign platform in 2000.

Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state, said peacekeeping and civil administration functions in such places as Bosnia were sapping the morale of the military. "We don't need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten."

Hostility to using American military forces for anything other than fighting war ran so deep that the Pentagon decided to close the only U.S. military establishment devoted to post-combat peacekeeping operations, the Peacekeeping Institute at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

The decision was canceled after protests from both inside and outside the Pentagon and as violence took hold in the streets of Iraq despite the overwhelming military victory over the Iraqi army in 2003.

Now renamed the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, its faculty has doubled, according to its director, Col. John Agoglia.

The Army is addressing two of the biggest hurdles for an effective counterinsurgency -- problems in understanding cultural differences and problems in communicating.

It is including "cultural awareness" classes in its training and to help overcome a severe shortage not only of Arabic speakers but also of interpreters, the Army has issued hundreds of hand-held translation devices.

Called SpeechGuard, the device enables the user to communicate by proxy -- it "speaks" a list of around 3,000 phrases stored in its memory and can be hooked up to loudspeakers.

At the same time, the Army is encouraging voluntary language training.

While official efforts to sharpen counterinsurgency skills have proceeded at a stately pace, know-how spread rapidly through an informal network of Web logs that began appearing during the war in Afghanistan.

"The informal channels are running ahead of the institutional ones," said John Gavrilis, a Special Forces major who published a first-person account of the occupation of the city of Rutbah in Foreign Policy magazine this month. For a time, Gavrilis served as the city's mayor.

"These exchanges can happen in real time, with commanders exchanging tips on what works and what doesn't. That makes for fast learning." "

Why it took this long to get this, is not known. Hopefully this knowledge can be used quickly and effectively.